When Lynda Kenny wrote "Nobody doesn't like Sid Ascher" in the Press of Atlantic City, she didn't exaggerate. Since his early teens as a Boy Scout in Brooklyn, New York, Sid has given of himself to help others and make them look good.

In May of 1992 Sid marked his 80th birthday in the belief that he was living on borrowed time. Given only 30 days to live in 1985 because he had advanced pancreatic cancer, a surgeon had Sid on the operating table immediately. Nine weeks later, Sid left the University of Pennsylvania Hospital weak but alive. He took a chance and as a result, the now 89 year old Ascher has had the chance to counsel some 500 cancer sufferers to give them hope.

Not one to sit around the house, Sid Ascher has kept active in recent years by working full time as Public Relations Manager at the "smaller but friendlier" Claridge Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, writing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, a trivia column, and until 1995, broadcasting three times a day with his taped "Sid Ascher's World" commentary on WFPG FM radio in Atlantic City. His social commentary has been printed in the Congressional Record on two different occasions.

When Sid was 14, the New York Daily Mirror proclaimed him "New York's Brightest Boy." Several years later he developed the "Miss Rheingold" beer competition that won awards in national advertising circles. Disliking comedic remarks about his hometown, in 1941 Sid founded "The Society for the Prevention of Disparaging Remarks about Brooklyn," gaining one million members. He penned the widely noted "Fala" speech in 1945 for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and slept in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom while representing the Boy Scouts on the occasion of President Herbert Hoover's birthday in 1932.

Sid Ascher's volunteer efforts include having served as chairman of the Atlantic County Division of the American Cancer Society, serving on the executive boards of the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City and the Atlantic Area Council Boy Scouts. He has been the recipient of more than a dozen awards for volunteer community service.

Sid has had four books published - one of poetry, another on trivia and a third, a children's book, with royalties going to the Shriners' Hospital for Crippled Children. He was ghostwriter on three other books, and a portion of his proceeds for his just published Sid Ascher's World of Trivia and more! benefits the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City. Sid composed "The Very Thought of You", which he sold to bandleader Ray Noble because, at the time, publishers said the song could never amount to anything. (It has been recorded around the world by more than a thousand vocalists and orchestras and was background music for the film, Casablanca. He also sold the rights to "The Touch of your Lips" for the same reason.

Sid claims the biggest achievement and joy of his life is his wife, Evelyn, and his two daughters, Sharon and Joan, and 7 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Books by Sid Ascher